I have one month left in this sad sad apartment and then a weekish at my house and then I can officially move back to Athens, to a place that presently holds no memories for me, with a girl I've known for less than a year. That sounds so strange, and like a very bad idea, but I think Nicki and I will have a lot less problems than say 3 other girls. (Is anyone else thinking Mary? Good.)

Every time I go home I bring something back to Athens, like stationary or a book or a board game, but I'm not really taking much out of Athens. I think soon I'll strip the walls of things i stare less and less at. There's not really anything here that I'm not using, except for the books I haven't started yet and my lamp which is no where near where I need it to be.

Stephanie and I have finished and given away our mixtapes. Time to pressure people to finish and to start thinking about the next theme. Some of my friends in my sorority are trying to plan a Penguin Pal Party to go see Harry Potter. A few people are huge Harry Potter nerds so I have a feeling costumes will be involved. It sounds kinda crazy fun, and I want to be there to at the very least document it. I can't wait!

Ohhhhhhhhhh shit. I don't know, I just love Tilly And The Wall.
(And am so happy to put them on my mix!)

My eyes keep getting really pink and scary looking, but they never really hurt or itch. I've been performing a balancing act with my glasses and contacts, but now it is strictly glasses. I drew a picture of my eye looking rather green and rather pink with pastels today. It looks kind scary, so I guess I must look kinda scary.

I have no idea where to put all of these pastel drawings and my fridge is going to get kinda full soon. Maybe I'll dedicate part of a wall to them.

A rough draft but a break through from writers block. A bit of Sierra:


I reached for the day old fortune cookie with hunger in my eye. After breaking it into halves, I consumed each with a cautious mouth. How many more of these would I get to eat so peacefully? I savored the cookie and consumed my fears, forcing them both to the depths of my belly.
On the bed before me lay the inconspicuous fortune. After all of the fortune tellers I'd seen, I've learned to take their not so pretty predictions with a grain of salt and a bitter smile.
"After reviewing your charts and considering how fast this disease destroyed your mother, I'd say you have five years most." "One full year and then who knows." "I regret to tell you that you have six months left to live."
They never asked to look at my sweaty palms though, so maybe doctors aren't the most accurate fortune tellers out there. Fortune cookies, however, are where it's at. A fortune cookie predicted my first kiss, a fortune cookie predicted I would inherit my mother's greatest treasure, hell a fortune cookie even predicted my falling out with Emile. Lying there innocently, my lucky numbers (12, 13, 22, 30, 33, 34) dared me to flip them over. With slight hesitation I picked it up and flipped it over in my hands.
"You will live a long and prosperous lie."
And there it was, in my hands, with a faded 'f' in the last word, the truth shining faintly up at me. If I had been a sensible girl, with a sensible girl best friend, we would have agreed that you have to take it as it's meant to be read, with that fateful 'f'. I, however, am neither sensible nor normal. I have faith in my fortune cookies and I refuse to believe that one of them would blatantly lie to my face like that. There had never been much hope for me to live a long life filled with wealth or grandchildren or fame.
Sure, the realization of this stings a bit, but it puts things into a better perspective for me. I can't let Emile be mad at me forever, because the truth is I don't have forever. If I want to do all the things slightly insensible girls do with their male best friends, I was going to have to stop dragging my ass. If I want to set Hailey up with my boyfriend, I'll have to do that while I'm still well enough to go to school. And if I'm going to have an affair with my boyfriend's best friend, I sure as hell can't fall in love.
I went into my room and grabbed some sticky tape from deep within my desk drawer. Laying down on my bed, I placed the stickied fortune cookie where the wall met the bed and smoothed it out. Maybe someday someone will come in here, prepared to tear down everything that resembles me, and they'll stare at this fortune for a long time and wonder if the 'f' had always been so faded. I don't care if they cry or if they laugh, but I really do hope someone else will contemplate this fortune and the sad girl who laid in this bed.

Oh Regina, please keep singing about my heart. I really do have to get her new album.

Stephanie let me borrow Lolita to read so I'm going to give her Swollen. I decided to read it again so that my memory of it would be clearer. I love the theme of a swollen heart, which I'm pretty sure is applied to her at the end of the book. Rereading it reminds me of all the things I like about it, like how she's kinda a slut and how she loves the way slut sounds in her mouth.

Swollen and Lolita and Regina are just putting me in the strangest moods. Listening to Another Town and thinking of Maria and Alex and then my stomach turning in on itself. This latest chapter of my life should be labeled uncertainty. Lately I'm really unsure about my friendships. There's this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that Alex is beyond avoiding me, when I know he's busy with school and work. I just miss our conversations and his friendship. I don't think he reads this anymore, so I feel fine talking about him to whoever still does read this. After spring break things changed in the worst way and I felt like there was nothing I could really do or say to pull him back into my life. I don't know, he's on my letter list.

I've been having very vivid dreams of kissing boys I've never kissed before and the clarity of the memory startles me in the morning. I guess that's just karma making up for all of my recent nightmares. Personally, I'd rather be repaid in my awake state. A good kiss would be very nice right about now.

Kaitlyn didn't believe that you could make a fort under my bed. You can't sit up, but we disproved her. Why there's a fucking pole down there, I haven't a clue, but it made fitting four grown girls a little bit of a squeeze. We had a long post-brownie adventure in what we later named "the bush" and made several inappropriate jokes, in between laughing at the worst pictures ever taken of ourselves. It was kinda sorta one of the best nights of my life, and totally worth my new roommate possible hating me. And hey, if she does, I'm only here one more month. And for the first time in our 6 months of friendship, Kaitlyn finally noticed the hole in my shoulder. We made up fun stories for how I got it and then I told the boring old truth.

108 pictures later, this is still the very best.

I want to get back to everything I've been missing, but at the same time, I want change. Badly.
This past year I've mentioned change over and over and over again. I changed for the worse, I got better. I wanted to feel involved, and then I wanted my space. I wanted to write about hope and then I got better instead. The journey isn't over. I've put some additions on the old book list and now I have around 250 to read. I don't have enough of a summer for all that. But it will be good to move along my book list. The Jane Austin Book Club inspired me. But alas, it's the same idea we've been tossing for the past two years. They read what another wrote years ago, we yearn to read what we've wrote, just ten minutes ago.

I've begun a summer mixtape trade thing with my coworkers at Bolton. The idea was birthed around Eat Smart and from there Jessica and I have nurtured it. So far there are just over 30 people participating. One girl asked me if I was on prom committee or student government in high school, and all I could do was give her the strangest look. I know where she was coming from, but she obviously does not see where I've come from. Maybe I'm misrepresented at work. I'm always as polite as I can be, I never really interject into big conversations, if I didn't develop a friend group I would have been doomed to be that quiet girl no one notices who gets stuck with jobs like dusting the plants. I think before the mixtape, I had no voice at Bolton.

Well anyway, if I can organize 30 people to exchange mixtapes I should be able to get 5 or 6 girls together to read poetry and short stories, right? And if I can read my writing to people with far greater talent than myself, I should be able to be my awkward caring self at work.

Labels: Bolton, books, change, Jane Austen Book Club, mixtapes, writing, writing group

Stephanie from work came over last night. I put my sheets on the empty bed in Yu's room and let Stephanie sleep in there. It's kinda convenient having a fully furnished empty bedroom next to me. A little less creepy with guests in it too.

I'm not sure where it came from but Stephanie and I had a true heart to heart. It was strange hearing her stories coming from her, because it wasn't how I saw her at all. It was strange being very comfortable sharing my stories, and only crying about my mom's past and not my own. But betrayal breaks my heart the hardest, and my mom knows all about betrayal, so maybe I should have seen that coming. I'm not sure why seeing someone broken makes them seem more real, but my views on Stephanie have expanded greatly to the point where I just want to hug someone.

I think we all feel alone at times when there's someone standing right next to us, feeling the same awful way, and if we just shared that scary truth, we could be a lot happier. I think we have a lot to learn from each other.

I've come to realize that I'm still not living. I am far from having the adventure I desire, far from fully fitting in with the different groups of people I meet. I feel like I'm in high school all over again.

I reclaimed Mean Everything To Nothing from my car and am obsessing over The River. I want that life we spoke of, late that night in the hall. Put me in an eco-efficient Mystery Machine and we'll build our tents in parking lots, in the woods by the old fence links, in a desert near a cactus. We'll chase bands and we'll follow sunsets. We'll finally find the soundtrack to our lives. And we'll make mixes of our feelings, box them up and send them to the proper soul. We'll shop at vintage stores and I'll build a collection of sunglasses. You'll paint your fingers the colors of the rainbow and we'll dance like hippies in the rain wearing clothes made out of garbage bags. The stream will overflow and I'll pose by a truck that hasn't moved in years. We'll play house and I'll cook if you clean. We were going to make this happen. Or maybe I'll go it alone.

Labels: Best of Libellus

I'm supposed to be getting ready for work and cleaning up my apartment, but a) who really cares how I look at work? and b) who do I ever have over?

I actually like work and going to work, which is beyond scary. I guess I like being surrounded by my friends all the time and getting paid for it. Working at Bolton is obviously not hard work, but it's not the most boring. I've had that job, I'm not ready to go back, even for the super nice pay. And that's the thing, last summer I got paid very nicely, I was working 40 hour weeks, I got tons of experience, and was bored out of my mind, lonely, extremely self conscious, and depressed. Is making $100 a day really worth the price for your sanity? No thank you.

So I'm willing to settle for the scrape of the barrel to have at least a little bit of fun.
Even at Old Navy, my increase in wage was hardly mentionable when you factored in my hours and how much fun I wasn't having. Without a job this summer I would be bored and severely unproductive, but with this set schedule, I'm actually a lot better in my other areas of life. It's weird how it works, but it works. I'm even able to make mixtapes again!

Lately all of the mixtapes I've been making sound like 2002 - early 2006. I'm stuck in this period of my youth, and even more so, I'm stuck recreating mixes of songs of the summer. Even the mix I'm making for Nicki, Summer For Two, Summer For You is summer themed. I don't even get the title I came up with. What's my fascination of summers past and why am I so fixated?

I decided to go home this weekend for an early Father's day and to see Sarah, who I still haven't told I can come. I want to grab my sparklers and my old CD collection, the one I pretend not to own. If I'm going to be stuck in the early 2000's, I should at least do it right.

Telling all our friends about her new haircut and how she misses her pretty coat. Total text whore.

I had the strangest procedure done today. I went to the dermatologist about the white bumps around my eyes, she told me they're cysts that are under my skin and offered to zap them away, right away. So I went ahead and laid back and she charged the strange machine on the wall. It was like going to the eye doctors and having to keep your eyes open during those strange eye tests and a bit like getting a tattoo. The pain was sudden and it felt like I was being stung, which made a lot of sense when my eyes started to swell later, a normal side effect.

But in a week 3 of the worst ones will be gone and the rest should go away on their own in the next month or so. It's nice having the control back on what goes on my face. Whenever anyone pointed out the cysts it was so embarrassing because they don't seem normal and I had no idea how to explain them.

If I didn't have my speeding ticket to pay off and if I wasn't consenting to go to the beach for the 4th of July, I would have loved to go get my tattoo refilled this week. I guess I'll wait closer to the end of the summer, when my bank account has leveled back out and my desire to go swimming has decreased.

I've started a healthy schedule back in Athens and I can't wait to start seeing my friends again. My heart and thoughts are overwhelmingly with Nadia, and I know I should call more often, but it's hard for me. It's hard to see your close friend go through something so rough, especially when you've never been in their shoes. It makes me fully realize how difficult I must be to understand by some of my friends. It reminds me of all the times I've been shielding myself from the people I care about, not because I was too embarrassed for them to know, but I didn't want them to get uncomfortable around me. I'm the same person I was before, just not as sane.

I still wish things were easier and we still had the options to make simple decisions, and take certain actions. But nothing is truly certain anymore. And I didn't used to feel that way. My love was certain, my friendship was certain. But I can't give either if I can't save myself.

I pray to God every time I have to make the long trip. I pray for myself, for her, for whatever my thoughts drift too. I feel like I have to come clean, when there is nothing I need to share. Maybe I should want to, maybe I should have more decency. I just want to see tomorrow. Have hope and keep it ever close.

When you feel completely lost and disconnected, is there any need to hold back?
I'm going to let it rip, in complete honesty, in my latest creation.
I've told my biggest secret, what's more devastating and self depreciating than the truth?

It's funny that the truth is all I wanted. The truth is what I seek. But when you know the truths I know, being so misguided isn't such a bad thing. Maybe it is better to wait and grow up and mature some more before letting the full truth in.

I just got back from vacation, I'm returning to Athens to work, but I fear fate will be bringing me back to my parents house more than I'm ready for. I just need a little time away. Maybe just 2 more years, maybe one additional full year in Buenos Aires with my dream.